A model of prehistoric collecting on the rocky shore

Selective resource exploitation patterns in prehistory are often explained in terms of cultural preference, but this paper argues that a non-cultural explanation based upon zoological models of consumer choice may be equally valid. A model of shell-fishing behaviour concerning the relationship of abundance and yield is developed and used to predict that rocky shore collectors should ignore all factors other than the individual size of shellfish and that, in doing so, they would become progressively selective in their collecting patterns. Data from prehistoric rocky shore shell middens in Palliser Bay, New Zealand, indicates several phases of progressively selective collecting over a period of 600 years and these patterns appear best explicable in terms of the model.